


no sleep in heaven (or bethlehem)

by muppetstiefel



Series: nothing new about this rage [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Dissociation, Everyone Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Vanya Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Vanya is straight up dissociating for most of this fic, Wakes & Funerals, also the Hargreeves are not nice to each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 22:25:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18433334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muppetstiefel/pseuds/muppetstiefel
Summary: “The house was full of ghosts long before Ben died. Now, Vanya thinks, they’re just more vivid to the Hargreeves siblings.”Vanya returns home after Ben's death.





	no sleep in heaven (or bethlehem)

It’s an odd feeling, Vanya thinks. Homesickness.

She misses the smell of the academy more than anything. The mix of Allison’s coconut shampoo and the mahogany of the old furniture. The smell of washing up liquid as grace scrubbed the dishes. She misses the noise sometimes too, the constant sound of feet, Klaus telling jokes, Diego shattering glasses against his bedroom wall. Sometimes, she even misses the sound of Reginald, barking orders. 

She misses her siblings the most. And Ben, just a little bit more.

The school isn’t much different from the academy, not when she really thinks about it. Same long, winding corridors. Same itchy jumpers and skirts that must be kept no more than half an inch above the knee. There’s still an enforced bedtime- at the age of seventeen, she thought maybe she’d grow out of that, but no such luck.

The teachers are nicer than Reginald ever was. She refuses to call him dad, flat out rejects the very idea. she shredded nearly all evidence that she was ever affiliated with The Umbrella Academy some time in her first year at the school. It was obvious, she realises when she looks back on her thirteen-year-old save. The way she spoke in stilted formalities, how she glared at the floor, the way she knew nothing of the world around her. She shudders sometimes, when she remembers the way she used to rush home in the holidays and spend entire days skimming through Allison’s gossip magazines to try and understand what her classmates were on about.

But now she’s seventeen, and only nine months away from being a graduate. And finally, for once in her life, Vanya Hargreeves feels special. 

She’s not the best in her class, she knows this. She still wobbles, still messes up her runs, still soaks sheet music with tears after a particularly difficult practice session.

That doesn’t matter. She’s the only Hargreeve who can manipulate strings like that, who can fill the air with a bittersweet melody that lingers in your head for days on end. She’s the only one who was allowed to hold the curve of the bow and the neck of the violin in her inexperienced hands. The only one allowed to turn those nerves into raw feeling. And that counts for something, Vanya tells herself.

It’s on the first week of the summer break that she hauls herself, her violin and her suitcase into the cramped New York taxi. She tries not to let the fact that Reginald didn’t bother to collect her sting too much, and it doesn’t. She’s used to it by now. 

She laces her fingers together, trying to calm the nervousness building in her stomach. She stopped coming home for holidays long ago, cutting off all connection with the academy. It’s the only way to do this, she told herself as she informed Pogo she wouldn’t be home for Christmas. It’s the only way to stop dragging them down with me.

Vanya thinks it’s the hardest thing she’s ever had to do.

Ben kept sending letters, kept trying to prop open the bridge between her and The Umbrella Academy. With each ignored letter, each unuttered reply, Vanya took an axe to the haphazard bridge and cut it down. Ben stopped sending letters two months ago. It terrifies Vanya, to think she may have succeeded in cutting down that bridge forever.

I’m going to fix it; she says to herself as the taxi takes a sharp right turn. She repeats it as he pulls down a side street. She actually whispers it out loud as he slows down next to the academy.

“I’m going to fix it,” she mutters under her breath, pulling the case to her chest. 

The academy must be smaller than an average apartment block, but to Vanya it has always towered above. The gothic architecture that coats every inch of the building, the way it seemingly leans forward. Vanya always feels outnumbered when she returns home. It’s like entering Dracula’s castle, she tells herself. With no escape route.

She stops outside and rings the doorbell, reasoning it’s not really her home anymore. Then she steps back and waits. It starts to rain, and although its barely misting it clings close to Vanya’s clothes. She hugs herself, rubbing at her arm to get warm. The sky itself is overcast, dark and gloomy and entirely right for a return home, she muses to herself.

“Pathetic fallacy, huh.” She laughs slightly just as the door to the academy is opened. It results in a gush of wind. Luther stares down at her from the doorstep.

“Vanya?” his tone is disbelieving and nods, even though its only really been ten months since she last came home. He stares at her, squinting slightly as though she’s hard to make out. She reckons she probably is fading in with the grey sky in her uniform. 

“Uh, come in…” he steps aside to give her room to enter. She does so thankfully, setting both her cases down next to the door. She keeps her coat on. 

(It’ll make for a quicker escape, she reasons.)

The sounds of New York are shut out as Luther closes the door and bolts it shut. The house itself is silent. Vanya moves around the lobby, the sound of her footfalls resonating in the vacuous silence of the academy. She opens her mouth to ask where everyone is, when Luther blurts out. 

“I didn’t think you’d come.”

Vanya opens her mouth to answer, frowning, then closes it again. She doesn’t know what to say. She never knows what to say, especially not to Luther, especially not in this house. So instead she lets the statement sit, unsure of what it means.

“It’s just so- last minute and I didn’t think- didn’t know if you’d be able to get the time off school or-” Has Reginald planned a summer holiday, Vanya thinks to herself. Luther catches sight of her, and her gaping mouth betrays her confusion.

He stops. Shifts. Frowns. Then, 

“You came for the funeral. Right?”

Shell-shock washes over her body and Vanya just stares at him, mouth open, a thin veil of sweat starting to cover her hands, which she knots together. Luther keeps talking but she doesn’t hear any of it because someone’s dead and there are too many emotions fighting for control in her head. She doesn’t know what to feel, so she doesn’t feel anything. Instead, she numbly pushes her way past Luther and she’s climbing up and up. And then she’s at the end of the corridor and she can see the tall doors that she knows leads to her father’s study. The doors she used to stand behind, trying to listen in while her siblings got their mission briefing. Her hand closes around the handle. She is only one turn, one push away from staring straight into the dead eyes of Sir Reginald Hargreeves. One turn, one push from asking him who he killed. 

One turn, one push from asking him why he didn’t tell her.

“Miss Vanya,” Pogo’s voice is seeped with worry and Vanya lets her hand fall. She turns around, lacing her fingers behind her back and trying so hard not to cry. When he sees her, he steps forward but she steps back, shirt brushing against the office doors.

“I’m so sorry, Miss Vanya. Master Luther informed me that no one told you.” He pauses, shifting his glasses up his nose. “It was rather foolish of me to assume that your father would’ve let you know.”

“Pogo,” her voice is barely a whisper. Not that it’s ever loud, but now it fees quieter than ever. “Please. Can- can you just tell me… who died?”

 

Vanya doesn’t think she’d ever be ready to hear the answer.

Ben.

Of all the siblings, Ben and Vanya always gravitated towards each other the most. Perhaps it was because their bedrooms sat adjacent to one another. It was probably just the nature of being the two biggest numbers. Whatever it was, Number Six and Number Seven used to be inseparable. Vanya realises, later when she’s curled up in her bed, that only Ben would know exactly what to say to her now, the way to comfort her. He was always the one she went to after nightmares, telling him of her deepest, darkest fears. He was the one who would hold her and rock her back to sleep. Irony, she decides, is wasted on the grieving.

For the next few days, she becomes a ghost of herself. She sheds the persona of New-Vanya, reverts back to simply being the ‘ordinary sibling’. On the third day of crying and hiding in her bed, she emails the school to tell them she won’t be coming back. She thinks she can feel Ben glaring at her for that, but she really doesn’t care. 

“I can’t go back, Ben,” she tells the air, just in case he’s listening. “and you’re the only one who could make me. And you can’t make me so… guess I’m not going back.”

She doesn’t leave her room for the first three days. On the fourth day, she ventures down to the kitchen. She tries to avoid her siblings but that’s unnecessary, she realises. They’re all avoiding her anyways.

She starts to eat peanut butter straight out the jar. She stops practising. She stops brushing her teeth. She starts wearing her old academy uniform. She draws on the tattoo. She screams at herself in the bathroom mirror.

No one cares.

The house was full of ghosts long before Ben died. Now, Vanya thinks, they’re just more vivid to the Hargreeve siblings.

On the twelfth day of moping, she finally sees Allison. Vanya is passing by her room on the way to complete her daily ritual- take her meds, cut off chunks of her own hair and cry – when she sees that the door has been left ajar.

And there is Allison. She looks older, but perfect as ever. Hair pristinely done, academy skirt folded over at the waist. She looks like grieving has never hit her. Vanya only plans to take a glancing look but Allison sees her hovering in the doorway. Well, she sees Vanya’s body. Vanya’s mind is watching the scene unfurl from three steps behind.

“Vanya, hey. Luther mentioned you were home,” Allison reaches out and pulls her into a hug. Literally pulls.

“yeah-” she realises she hasn’t spoken in ten days and clears her throat, “yeah I guess I am. How… are you?”

Allison bites at her lip and Vanya notices that she’s thinner and there are tear lines in her foundation. “I’m doing okay. I’ll be glad once the funerals over. And how are you?”

Vanya answers with a shrug. Allison tries again.

“How’s school?”

“oh. I uh- I left.” She tries for a smile. She’s sure she looks completely crazy. 

“Oh, Vanya…” Allison’s tone is just so pitying and she has to find something else, anything else to talk about. She scans the room, and her eyes settle on the pile of cardboard boxes in the corner.

Allison must see her staring because she presses her lips into a thin line. “That’s just the stuff I wanna take with me, for the new place. You’re welcome to the rest,” she gestures around herself, her smile sickly sweet. A movie star smile, Vanya observes. “I’m not gonna need it.”

“You’re leaving?” Vanya probes, staring up at Allison.

“Yeah, I guess I am,” she responds and it takes Vanya a few seconds to realise those are her words. “I got a part in a movie, I go to LA to film next week.”

“Next week… after the funeral?”

Allison nods, turns away. “Yeah. The day after.”

Vanya turns to leave, needing to get the hell out of there. The family, if they ever really were a family, are falling apart right in front of her eyes. Five, Ben, Allison-

She’s halfway down the hall when Allison calls after her. She stops and turns, her body mechanic.

“Vanya, I know what you’re thinking, it’s so soon after- after Ben but I need you to know. I need you to look at this from my point of view and realise something that’s staring you right in the face.” She pauses, face set. Vanya thinks that maybe, just for a moment, Allison is going to reach out to her. But no.

“You’re the one who left first. Not me.”

 

The next time Vanya even leaves her room it’s the day of the funeral. She finds something appropriately morbid in her wardrobe, which isn’t hard. A black academy skirt. A plain white shirt. A black bowtie from her school recital.

She stares at her reflection in the mirror, tugging on her haphazardly cut hair and pulling at the grey skin around her face. Then, she mutters out loud to nobody, “I look like a zombie waiter.”

 

It’s not really a funeral, she decides. The siblings file into the courtyard and stand in a line, facing Reginald, who gives a speech on loyalty and unity. It’s useless, Vanya thinks, with The Umbrella Academy already in tatters. Then he unveils the large bronze statue of ben, which is loud and gaudy and just so wrong. Then, he dismisses them.

Vanya sits on the stairs after the Not-Funeral funeral, not knowing what to do with herself. She knows she could leave right now, that she has no obligation to stay. Instead, she sits, sipping water that grace- mom- had insisted on getting her. She glances at her siblings. Luther and Allison are discussing something, heads bent together, voices hushed. Vanya catches glimpse of the conversation.

“- what does he think he’s doing?” Luther’s tone rises and Allison scoffing, folding her arms.

“He’s not doing anything, Luther. He’s just grieving.”

“We’re all grieving. He could at least show up to the funeral.”

Klaus, Vanya realises. She hasn’t seen him since she arrived. She thought their paths would cross at some point, but he seems to have self-quarantined himself. She doesn’t blame him really.

(Though she does miss him.)

She’s about to head up to her room when Diego slouches down next to her. She shifts slightly, unsure what greetings are appropriate for your estranged brother at your other brothers’ funeral. Which is good, because Diego skips pleasantries.

“Why are you here?” the question is biting, and Vanya knows it isn’t meant without intent. She gestures towards Allison and Luther, Mom and Pogo. Reginald has long since left. Diego shakes his head. “Allison says you didn’t know about the funeral till you got here. Why are you really here?”

She clears her throat, stares at the floor and not at Diego. “School finished for the summer. I came home to see you all.”

A silence falls over them, then Diego lets out a bitter, “you should go.”

“What?” Vanya stares at him, blinking in disbelief. 

“I mean it. You should just go. No one wants you here.”

“Diego-” she starts, but her cuts her off, standing up.

“You didn’t find it so hard to leave the first time. Now what? You finally give a shit about us?” He laughs emptily, then adds. “Seriously Vanya. Just go.”

He leaves her sitting there, a mix of disbelief and hurt on her face.

Allison leaves the day after the funeral. She packs up her things and takes a taxi to the airport. Luther says goodbye to her at the door. Vanya doesn’t say goodbye to her at all.

She knows Diego’s right. She should leave, but she’s still clinging on. Once she leaves its over- The academy, her family, everything.

And Ben, too. The house is her final connection to Ben and it doesn’t matter how much she hates it; she clings onto it with the last fibre of her being. She walks the ways she used to walk with Ben. Pauses by his portraits. Curls up in his bed. She even sits under the stupid statue and talks to him.

She wishes, just once, he would talk back.

A month and a half into her return to the house, Pogo gives her an envelope from her father. It’s full of money, notes stacked against each other. it’s a note, a warning. A ‘Get Out’. She gets the message loud and clear.

She packs up her belongings that night, grabs her neglected violin and makes her getaway.

And then, for the first time since her return, she sees Klaus. He’s outside Bens room, staring into the vacuous shrine when he sees Vanya. His smile mirrors the weakness of her own, but his arms are open and Vanya barrels into him. She strains to her toes to wrap her arms around his neck. It’s worth it, she thinks, as she holds onto him.

He feels so thin in her arms and for the first time in weeks she lets out a sob about something other than her dead best friend. Klaus just holds her tighter. They don’t say anything, let the unspoken agreement sit. 

And when Vanya pulls away, picks up her Violin and leaves the Hargreeve house for good, he doesn’t say anything.

Part of her wishes he would.

Ben would.

**Author's Note:**

> It took me literally two days to write more for this fic and I really hope it doesn't disappoint!
> 
> I really wanted to get inside the head of a different character so I decided to delve a little more into Vanya's mind. Also there is an entire cut section from this where i just described her roommate in vivid detail that I had to cut because it didnt fit with the flow but it was very gay and very cute.
> 
> Title for this fic taken from Mama Who Bore Me from Spring Awakening!!
> 
> Also the title of the series as a whole is from the song Pride by Grace Petrie, I was listening to the song as I wrote this and the lyrics really struck me.


End file.
